Journal of Artful Short Stories and Poems

Jordan Sanderson - "Rabbit Ears," "Not That We Wanted to Leave So Much," and "Arrangement #6."

Rabbit Ears

Tonight I love only water more

than you. And you’re so close to being

no more for this world, this world of digits

and liquid crystals and HD. World-wise

and slender. Two legs stretched skyward.

I long for fuzzier days and more darkness.

The industrial days that conceived you,

the rural days that demanded you, the nights

you taught me to be alone. You’re no hood

ornament, no cake topper, no hands washing

the face of a clock. You’re a metal peace

sign, a fork tuned to turn faces into flickers.

You’re the last divining rod, pulling

pictures out of a pool of clouds.

Not That We Wanted To Leave So Much

The third trip around the fields failed

to convert rows to streets, did not dim

the moon and blot out stars with bulbs on timers,

framed no panel of doors for our entry.

Before that, spinning in circles, calling

“Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary,” in a dark

bathroom at the skating rink in town did not

produce the gushing, gashed face we wanted to see

in the mirror. Holding our breath for long

as we could did, however, trip the trapdoor

in the knees and let us believe, however temporarily,

that we had smacked our faces on the tiles

of another world, that its guardians had given

us shiners. In the light outside, we tilted

our heads to the sun, tried to memorize

the maps streaming on eyelids, wondered

what weather waited in the low, red clouds.

Arrangement #6

I want to talk about healing,

which implies the presence

of a vague wound. I do not

know where this wound exists,

only that dogs nurse themselves

with tongues.

Jordan Sanderson earned a PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi and is currently an instructor at Auburn University. His work has appeared in several journals, including Red Rock Review, Red River Review, and